Navratri 2025: Foods To Eat And Avoid During 9 Days Of Fasting

Celebrate Navratri 2025 with devotion and wellness. Know the complete list of foods to eat and avoid during the 9 days of fasting, along with healthy vrat-friendly meal ideas to keep you energised.

Shardiya Navratri 2025: One of the most popular festivals in India is Navratri, which is a nine-day event devoted to the goddess Durga. The followers during this keep fasts as a means of worship and cleansing the soul. Besides being a religious event, Navratri fasting is also an occasion which will refresh your body, enhance digestion and enrich your health. However, it is important to be aware of what to eat and what to avoid, which will help keep the energy level and enjoy the advantages of fasting.

What Is Navratri Fasting?

The fast of Navratri is practised depending on the individual’s faith, along with local knowledge, as well as health. Other devotees opt to avoid grains, meat and some spices, whereas others can take a more lenient approach to fasting. The staple food is usually fruits and veggies, dairy items, nuts, and gluten-free fasting flour (buckwheat, kuttu) and water chestnut (singhara).

The purpose of fasting is not only to deny oneself some types of food but also to cleanse the mind and body. Eating the right foods ensures you stay active, avoid weakness, and maintain spiritual focus.

Navratri 2025: Foods To Eat

Fruits: Vitamins, minerals and energy occur naturally in fruits. Excellent choices could be apples, bananas, pomegranates, papaya, watermelon and the berries. They will give you energy at once, and they will keep you hydrated, particularly during an extended fasting period.
Vegetables: Fresh vegetables, such as the pumpkin, the bottle gourd, spinach, carrots and cucumber, are easily digested and well loaded with nutrients. Using the spices that are accepted in fasting, you could make simple meals such as sabzis, salads, or steamed vegetables.
Fasting Flours: Most Navratri dishes are made with kuttu (buckwheat) polish or singhara polish (water chestnut) or rajgira polish (amaranth). These flours contain high amounts of protein and fibre that are going to keep you even more satiated. These flours can be used to make puris, rotis or pancakes.
Dairy Products: Paneer, milk, yoghurt, and buttermilk are allowed during Navratri fasting. They are also sources of calcium and protein, and they aid in keeping the body’s energy going.
Nuts and Seeds: Some of the good snacks are almonds, cashews, walnuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. They are rich and in between-meal supplementing.
Fasting-Specific Snacks: Sabudana (tapioca pearls), samak rice and snacks made of flour made out of singhara are very famous and nutritional foods on the days of fasting.

Navratri 2025: Foods To Avoid

Grains and Cereals: The majority of followers disown wheat, corn and other standard grains. Conventional grains such as dal (lentils) and legumes are also limited in some areas.
Non-Vegetarian Food: Both meat and eggs are completely avoided during the Navratri fasting, as the food is centred on vegetarian and sattvic food.
Heavy and Oily Foods: Digestion is slow and results in a feeling of lethargy on consuming foods that are fried and greasy. Keep off deep-fried foods that are outside fasting flours.
Processed and Junk Food: Packaged snacks, fast food and food with artificial preservatives must be avoided. They do not fulfil the nutritional needs and may disorient the detoxifying food values of fasting.
Certain Spices: Heavy spices such as red chilli, onion and garlic are avoided by most of the devotees because during fasting, the intended peace of mind and the spirit are expected to be promoted and not affected by such spices that are stated to be tamasic.

Tips For a Healthy Navratri Fast

Keep yourself hydrated by taking as much water as possible, coconut water, and herbal teas.
Light foods such as fruits or a glass of milk should be your breakfast before embarking on heavier meals by breaking your fast.
Eat small and regularly to have energy.
Add exercise, such as walking or yoga, so that you are not tired.